U.S. labor force added 313,000 new jobs in February, which is positive news regarding President Trump’s bold job creation goal of creating 25 million new jobs within ten years. The President also wants to double GDP growth to 4%. Regrettably, after two-quarters of GDP growth over 3%, U.S. GDP is again hovering around 2.5% and is forecast to remain at this level through Q1 2018. Download complete 13-page report in the Jobenomics Library.
Monthly Job Creation Rate By President Since WWII
In today’s highly-charged political environment, what people really want to know is how today’s president is performing against past presidents. As color-coded by political party, of the twelve presidents since WWII, President Trump’s average monthly job creation rate is 195,714, which puts him in third-place following President’s Carter and Clinton.
Job Creation Scoreboard Since 2001
Since 2001, the monthly job creation high water mark was 522,000 new jobs in May 2010, and the low water mark for jobs losses was 802,000 in March 2009. From 2001 through 2017, the United States averaged an abysmal 75,000 new jobs per month (not shown).
From an Administration standpoint,
- The Bush Administration (2001 to 2008) created an average of only 22,000 new jobs per month, due to the onslaught of two major recessions, the calamity of 9/11 and the United States’ expensive mobilization for the global war on terrorism.
- The Obama Administration (2009 to 2016) created an average 110,000 job gains per month. Subtracting the six months of the Great Recession that Obama “inherited” from the previous administration, the average job creation rate during the 90-month post-recession period yielded an average of 160,000 new jobs per month. Perhaps, the most important legacy of the Obama Administration is 75-months of consecutive job gains averaging 201,000 jobs per month.
- The Trump Administration continued the positive job creation trend with 14 consecutive months of job gains and extended the continuous job creation run to 89 months—the longest span of labor force gains since the Bureau of Labor Statistics began record keeping in February 1939.
As mentioned, the Trump Administration is averaging 195,714 job gains per month, which is good but roughly equal to the 200,000 monthly average of the 89-month job creation run. Unfortunately, 200,000 per month is insufficient for the Trump Administration to achieve the President’s 25 million new job goal over the next decade. To accomplish this goal, the Administration needs to generate an average of 210,000 new jobs per month for the next 106 in the decade since President Trump was elected.
A 250,000 jobs per month threshold is a reasonable standard to use to provide a safeguard against future downturns or minor recessions. During the recent 89-month run of consecutive job gains, the United States exceeded the 250,000 job threshold 22-times or nearly one out of every four months.
As a note of caution, the employment statistics reported above were “seasonally adjusted” by the BLS. Seasonal adjustment is a statistical technique that attempts to measure and remove the influences of predictable seasonal patterns to reveal how employment and unemployment change from month to month.
Seasonally Adjusted Versus Not Seasonally Adjusted
The Seasonally Adjusted Versus Not Seasonally Adjusted chart shows the wide gap between actual and altered numbers. In 2017, the gap between Seasonally Adjusted and Not Seasonally Adjusted numbers reconciled themselves by the end of the year with a difference of net 1,000 jobs out of a total of 148 million employees For the first two months in 2018, Seasonally Adjusted figures are 3,874,000 higher than their unadjusted counterparts. The same seasonal disparity occurred in January and February 2017. Consequently, it likely that the wintertime “bump-up” generated early in 2018 may dissipate later during the calendar year in the same manner that transpired in 2017.
About Jobenomics: Jobenomics deals with the economics of business and job creation. The non-partisan Jobenomics National Grassroots Movement’s goal is to facilitate an environment that will create 20 million net new middle-class U.S. jobs within a decade. The Movement has a following of an estimated 20 million people. The Jobenomics website contains numerous books and material on how to mass-produce small business and jobs as well as valuable content on economic and industry trends. For more information see https://jobenomics.com/.